More than 20,000 people gather in protest against Canadian pipeline project in Washington

Keystone pipeline protest draws thousands in Washington

More than 20,000 people gathered in sub-zero cold under the shadow of the soaring Washington Monument Sunday to protest inaction on climate change and to persuade U.S. President Barack Obama to kill the Keystone XL pipeline project.

The crowd, some from as far away as California and Hawaii, rallied on the people’s mall to hear a wide range of speakers including several native Canadians, before marching to the White House carrying banners and placards and chanting “Say ‘No Keystone.’” Organizers called it the biggest climate change protest ever seen in the U.S.

But Obama couldn’t hear them. He was in a gated community in Florida, playing golf in shorts and a red baseball cap with Tiger Woods.A wide range of speakers took the podium to energize the shivering crowd including an apologetic Canadian actress from Saskatchewan.

Evangeline Lilly, whose TV and movie credits include Lost and The Hurt Locker, drew huge applause when she said, “I am going to stand up here and say that on behalf of Canada I apologize.”

I am ashamed that we are knocking on your door with dirty oil

“I am ashamed that we are knocking on your door with dirty oil,” she said. “I want to stand up here as a Canadian and I want to say I am sorry to the workers in Canada and the workers in America who have to go home and look their kids in the eye and know that they are damaging their future. And I want to say ‘yes’ to jobs that allow Americans and Canadians to go home and look their kids in the eye and say ‘I am fighting for you. I am working for you.’”

Two native Canadians also spoke. Chief Jackie Thomas of the Saik’uz First Nation Band in northern British Columbia asked Americans to support her band’s opposition to the Northern Gateway pipeline that will bring oilsands bitumen over the Rockies to the Pacific coast for shipment to Asia.

The crowd booed when she told them that the Canadian government had weakened the regulatory review process so that the Gateway pipeline would be approved.

Chrystal Lameman, 30, an Alberta Sierra Club worker whose Cree band is located in the oilsands, told the crowd that the oilsands companies have “completely desecrated” an area of Alberta “the size of a country.”

“If this pipeline goes through your government will further assist in the raping and pillaging of the lands of my ancestors,” she said, as the crowd booed the government.

She described how her people are “dying from cancer,” how fish in northeastern Alberta have cancerous tumours, moose have “puss bubbles under the skin” and babies are airlifted to the hospital for drinking contaminated water “and that’s the truth.”

Loud cheering greeted Obama campaign worker and environmental activist Van Jones when he taunted his former boss to be faithful to his promises and the people who elected him.

“If you let this pipeline go through, Mr. President, the first thing it runs over is the credibility of the President of the United States of America.” he said.

He exhorted the young people in the crowd to “stop being chumps”.

“You elected this president. You re-elected this president. You gave him the chance to make history. He needs to give you the change to have a future. Stop … Being … Chumps! Stop being chumps and fight for your future.”

The Keystone pipes oilsands bitumen through the American heartland to the Texas Gulf Coast.

Tom Steyer, who manages a $33-billion asset fund, Farallon Capital Management in San Francisco, was the only businessman to speak.

“The argument for the Keystone pipeline is business as usual,” he said. “We use fossil fuels. We continue to use fossil fuels and we need to transport them. But the time for business as usual has passed. We can’t afford 40 more years of dirty energy. We can’t afford the droughts, the storms, the disasters.”